1. Field of the Invention
In general, the present invention relates to systems and methods that are used to convey pharmaceuticals in an automated manner. More particularly, the present invention relates to the operating systems that govern the operation of automated machines that hold prescription pharmaceuticals.
2. Prior Art Description
When a person is sick, they commonly use the services of a professional healthcare provider. In the standard course of operation, healthcare providers regularly examine and diagnose patients in their offices. Typically, a sick patient will meet with the healthcare provider in his/her office. The healthcare provider will diagnose the illness and suggest a course of action to treat the illness. Often, the suggested course of action involves taking medication. If the selected medication is a controlled pharmaceutical, the healthcare provider writes a prescription for the patient. The patient takes the prescription to a pharmacy, wherein a pharmacist fills the prescription. As such, sick patients must proceed through a two-step process before they receive medication for their ailment. The patient must first visit with a healthcare provider to obtain a prescription. The patient must then visit with a pharmacist to have the prescription filled.
The two-step process of obtaining medication for an ailment presents many problems for a patient. The obvious problem is one of inconvenience. It takes time to visit both a physician's office and a pharmacy. It also takes time for a pharmacy to fill a prescription. Consequently, there can be a delay of many hours between when a physician hands a patient a prescription for a medication and the time that the patient has that medication in hand.
Furthermore, just because a patient is given a prescription does not mean that the patient will fill the prescription. A patient may believe that the physician is wrong in their diagnosis. Alternatively, a patient may procrastinate, hoping the ailment will pass without medication. A patient may also lose the prescription, forget about the prescription or purposely not fill the prescription for a variety of financial, religious and/or personal reasons.
The other problems associated with the two-step process of receiving medications are much less obvious, but far more important. When a patient arrives at a pharmacy, the patient must hand the pharmacist the prescription. The pharmacist must assume that the prescription is proper for both the patient and the illness being treated. In other words, the pharmacist must assume that the doctor did not make any error in writing the prescription and has handed the correct prescription to the correct patient. The pharmacist must then decipher the physician's handwriting and understand what has been prescribed and in what dosage. If the pharmacist misreads the prescription in any way, the prescription will be incorrectly filled.
Assuming the physician did not err in issuing the prescription and the pharmacist did not err in reading the prescription, the pharmacist must then properly fill the prescription and label the prescription. If the pharmacist errs in either filling or labeling the prescription, the patient may take the wrong medication or may take the right medication, but the wrong dosage. The patient may also be given the proper medication, in the proper dosage, but with incorrect dosing instructions.
Finally, once a prescription is prepared and labeled, it must be given to the correct patient. Most pharmacies do not ask to see identification from patients. The prescription is often just handed to the person who asks for the prescription and pays for the prescription.
Most patients assume that the prescription given to them at the pharmacy is correct. If a patient is handed the wrong prescription, there is a good chance that the patient will take that medication without ever reading the label on the bottle.
In addition to all the problems that may accidentally occur in traditional systems, many people also attempt fraudulently to acquire pharmaceutical prescriptions. Such people take advantage of the many problems of the system to forge, falsify, and steal pharmaceuticals.
It will therefore be understood that in order for a person to properly receive a prescription, there must be no human error in writing, handling, filling, labeling and delivering the prescription. Although the system works correctly the vast majority of the time, human error is always present. Thousands of such errors occur every year. These errors could result, either directly or indirectly, in deaths, permanent injury, illness, harmful drug interactions and untreated disease. This creates liabilities to pharmacists and doctors resulting in increased healthcare costs for everyone.
Despite training and safety protocols, the only way to reduce human error is to minimize the points in the system where human error can occur. To prevent physicians from writing illegible prescriptions, many electronic prescription systems have been created that electronically transmit prescriptions to pharmacies. Such prior art systems are exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 6,067,524 to Byerly, entitled Method And System For Automatically Generating Advisory Information For Pharmacy Patients Along With Normally Transmitted Data; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,883,370 to Walker, entitled Automated Method For Filling Drug Prescriptions.
Perhaps the most common place where errors occur is in the filling, labeling and delivery of the prescription by the pharmacist. One way to minimize human error in these processes is to create automated machines that convey prepackaged pharmaceuticals.
There are many ways to convey prepackaged goods to the public using automation. The most common way to convey prepackaged goods is through the use of vending machines. Vending machines can vend any product that is placed into the vending machines, including prepackaged pharmaceuticals. Vending machines can also be left accessible to the public at all times, thereby enabling a person to fill a prescription at their own convenience. Vending machines specifically configured to vend prescription pharmaceuticals are exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 5,797,515, to Liff, entitled Method For Controlling A Drug Dispensing System.
Replacing a human pharmacist with an automated vending machine presents its own set of problems. First, the vending machine must be manually filled with the proper medications. Human error may cause the vending machine to be incorrectly filled. Furthermore, as most everyone has experienced, vending machines do not always vend properly. Merchandise gets jammed. Sometimes nothing vends from the machine, sometimes two products accidentally vend from the machine.
A need therefore exists for an improved automated conveying system for prescription pharmaceuticals that safeguards against many common errors that are inherent in prior art automated systems. This need is met by the present invention as described and claimed below.